Quality of TOR's edition of Memories of Ice and House of Chains

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Quality of TOR's edition of Memories of Ice and House of Chains

#1 Guest_Cherusker_*

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Posted 23 November 2005 - 07:05 AM

I have a question and ask for help from Malazan veterans.

I am pretty new to the Malazan world and I love it. I have already the first two books as hardcover and I love them. But after I bought the new book "Memories of Ice" in hardcover, I am pretty disappointed, since the print quality of the book is really bad in my point of view. Here are my complaints:

- while the first two had great paper, a great font, smooth paper and lay great in the hand while reading, the Memories of Ice book has paper which is very cheap, raw and much too thick which makes this book much too thick
- the font is smaller and hard to read
- overall the format of this book from TOR is cheap and a disgrace for the great story which is in it

The story is still great, but the format is so bad that I am not sure I will continue buying the series in hardcover after this cheap print of the third book. I have written to TOR and will see what they answer.

I think the "Prince of Nothing" series and "The Song of Ice and Fire" and the "Malazan book of the Fallen" are the three most amazing and influental series in modern fantasy. But unfortunately I need to say that the Malazan books do look cheap compared with the other two series. The "Prince of Nothing" books are superb in print quality and design and probably the best available. The Song of Ice and Fire looks also great. The first two books of Malazan were great from the design concept (although the cover of the first was not great), but the third one looks really cheap, has cheap, thick and raw paper and is hard to read, lays uncomfortable in the hand while reading and takes too much space in the shelf.

Does anybody know why TOR changed to the new format? Is it that TOR wanted to produce the book cheaper? What can I do to have a great hardcover collection of Malazan and not buy the cheap version from TOR? Is there a version in the UK of Canada which look better?

Thanks for any help.

#2 Hume

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Posted 23 November 2005 - 07:33 AM

Well Personally comming from someone who has around 80 pages that have just literally fallen out of his MoI book and about another 150 pages that are just hanging in. About 1/3 of the books pages are only 2/3 on the book now as well.

I think that as long as those pages dont come out after 10-20 re-reads then you should be happy with your paper and binding.

Oh and Yes the Cover arts do Suck. up to the publishers though, not the author or the fans unfortunately.

#3

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Posted 23 November 2005 - 08:12 AM

I have a hardcover of MoI - Bantam Press/transworld (UK purchase) and it's fine. the cover art isn't the best.. but it doesn't affect the story.
I've had quite a few problems with the mmpb pages falling out, but that's prolly because I tend to throw a couple in my suitcase any time I travel.. just in case I need a fix

#4 caladanbrood

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Posted 23 November 2005 - 11:09 AM

I don't know about the TOR books, tbh, though I am consdering buying them as well. The quality of the books themselves from Batam leaves something to be desired, but the only thing I can think of with the TOR books is that MoI, being the longest book in the series, was too long to print in the same format as the previous two. I know they often have problems printing hardback copies of huge books...

O xein', angellein Lakedaimoniois hoti têde; keimetha tois keinon rhémasi peithomenoi.

#5 Folken

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Posted 23 November 2005 - 01:02 PM

@Hetan - I never knew Bantam published Memories of Ice in hardcover. Interesting.

But if the MoI print is this bad, just imagine what they might do with Bonehunters, when they get around to publishing it:eek:

<div align='center'>You must always strive to be the best, but you must never believe that you are - Juan Manuel Fangio</div>

#6

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Posted 23 November 2005 - 03:39 PM

Jen said:

@Hetan - I never knew Bantam published Memories of Ice in hardcover. Interesting.

bugger..
lol... should have read through before posting ...sorry.

MT not MOI! hence the nasy cover comment..
mind, ....MoI cover wasn't that wonderful either.

#7 Guest_Cherusker_*

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Posted 12 March 2006 - 03:20 AM

GREAT NEWS!!!!!

After being very disappointed with the cheap print format of the hardcover of Memory of Ice in the US, I looked around and found that Zooba.com has a bookclub version of Memory of Ice which is excellent in quality and much better than the cheap original I bought last November.

Here are the stats:

(1) Version 1:
Cheap hardcover (bought from Amazon.com and also seen at Barnes & Nobles and Borders stores):

Price: $17.61 new from Amazon.com
24.3 cm high
16 cm deep
6 (!) cm thick (I can't hold that monster book for more than 5 minutes)
fontsize 2mm (kills my eyes. Unreadable for me)
781 pages
Paper: very cheap, raw paper.
Overall: Too big, difficult to hold in hands, fontsize is so small that eyes get tired fast, cheap paper. Just plain cheap and bad.

(2) Version 2:
Very nice hardcover ordered new from Zooba.com.

Price: $9.99 (new)
21.8 cm high (2.5 cm smaller)
15 cm deep (1 cm smaller)
4.5 cm thick (1.5 cm thinner)
fontsize 2.5 mm (25% bigger - much easier to read)
1004 pages (223 more)
paper: very nice, smooth paper. Feels great.
Summary: Great. Nice paper, easy to read fontsize, much smaller book which feels much better in the hand. Just great.

SUMMARY:
The book club version of Memory of Ice is smaller, and I can hold it in my hand for hours. It has better paper, has a 25% bigger font size which makes it much easier to read (my eyes get tired from reading the cheap version). And it can be bought new for only $9.95, which is only 20 cents more than the reduced paperback price at Amazon.com. I strongly recommend buying Malazan books at Zooba.com. They also have the first two Malazan books with a new hardcover price of $9.95.

The deal with Zooba is that you need to join the club, which means you need to buy one book per month for $9.95. After three months you can quit. So just put all three Malazan books in the queue for the next three months and you get one per month and you will have a perfect collection of all three Malazan books (in the US) in hardcover for only $29.85.

#8 Folken

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Posted 12 March 2006 - 03:28 AM

Don't see the issue you have with the Hardcover. It's similar to Gardens of the Moon, sure the paper is a tad bit different but all in all it follows the same format in terms of font size and such

With this Zooba.com business...you fail to mention the 9.95 needed for monthly membership. Comes to the cost of a single hardcover novel. Plus as you say GotM and DG were good, why go through all this trouble? Besides I own the MoI hardcover, I see no problems with it. Sure its a bit big, but that was expected, its a huge novel. Have you seen the MMPB edition of MoI from Bantam? ITS HUGE 1200pages

<div align='center'>You must always strive to be the best, but you must never believe that you are - Juan Manuel Fangio</div>

#9 Guest_Cherusker_*

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Posted 12 March 2006 - 07:12 PM

No. The Zooba.com business works differently. You pay $9.95 monthly cost, that is right, but for that you define a queue of books and get one book for free every month. No shipping, no tax. So if you join Zooba and then put the three Malazan books in the queue, you get one book every month for an overall price of $9.95 per book.

#10 Guest_Cherusker_*

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Posted 12 March 2006 - 07:18 PM

If you do not see my issue with the print format of Memory of Ice, then hold the hardcover version of any "A Song of Ice and Fire" or "Prince of Nothing" books next to the cheap "Memory of Ice" print. It will be very obvious that TOR wanted to save money and used cheap paper and a very cheap print. I order prints for my work from printers and I know about the choices of paper quality that you have and it is very clear to me that TOR went cheap with that print.

All books mentioned above have a great content, but Memory of Ice looses badly in paper quality, size, font size and I think that the great Malazan series deserves better. I would not care so much if the series were not so great.

#11 Joord

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Posted 19 April 2006 - 02:34 AM

I don't know, it may be because I've only read Gardens of the Moon and Deadhouse Gates in mass market paperback, but I really like Tor Memories of Ice hardback. I do most of my reading at work (I have the bookworm's dream-job come true), and so most of my books lie open on a formica bench. This hardback does the best. I find the pages to be very soft and the volume is lightweight enough to carry in my backpack. I've been really careful with it so far, and I don't plan to use it as a doorstop, so it works just fine for me now.

I will agree with you that there has been an overall decline in the production of hardcover books, though. I used to work at a college library, and I would jam the magnetic tape that would set off the alarms up into the the spine using a metal rod. The glue in the spines was very difficult to work with because there would either be too much or it would be unevenly distributed. The spines would break incredibly easily.

#12 Guest_bsaenz24_*

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Posted 24 August 2006 - 03:13 AM

Ok,

Maybe it's just me, but the paper quality of the TOR U.S. hardbacks of Memories of Ice and House of Chains is some of the cheapest quality paper I have ever seen. It's one step above toilet paper. The paper is very light wait. Overall, the quality is just very disappointing.

Was anyone else disappointed with the TOR hardback editions?

#13 Guest_bsaenz24_*

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Posted 24 August 2006 - 03:14 AM

Oops, of course, I meant weight, not wait.

#14 Dagger

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Posted 28 August 2006 - 06:51 PM

I've got them all, and with MoI there was a definite drop-off in quality. Glad I used Amazon.ca to get Midnight Tides and the Bonehunters. Nonetheless, geek that I am, I'll buy all the US hardcovers. I'm pathetic in that way.

"I can see my days of not taking you seriously are coming to a middle." - Mal Reynolds

#15 Guest_Gondring_*

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Posted 20 September 2006 - 03:07 AM

Ive bought many TOR books, they get some great authors so i have many. And they do tend to fall apart!!
My WoT books are nearly impossible to read because new pages fall out everytime.

Very disappointing...